In many of the calls to arms there has not been an explicit call for regime change from all Wolves fans – more a registering of general discontent. The key demand seems simply to be for owners Fosun to do better.
Some will pray for a more successful, better-resourced stripe of owner. If the alternative is John Textor, the multi-club investor who lost control of Lyon shortly before the club announced annual losses of more than €200m, then the fans may wish to stick with what they have.
Run from China by Guo Guangchang, Fosun once rode the crest of a wave with Wolves – promotion and two seventh-place Premier League finishes. Recently they have diced with relegation, sold their best players and reinvested the profits with increasingly limited returns.
Fosun prefers to differentiate itself from Chinese-owned football club disasters elsewhere. It has a major portfolio of investments across the globe of which Wolves is just one. Now at odds with their fans, some doomsday theories abound including one about the club’s identity being sold to an esports venture. Fosun insiders say the club, led by chairman Jeff Shi, are bewildered why that has gained traction. They say they will have a good go at getting Wolves promoted next season.
Instead the club’s take on the disaster of 2025-26 is that their luck finally ran out this summer having pursued a rather haphazard recruitment policy in previous years that had nonetheless ultimately delivered a team and coach capable of staying up.
This time Matheus Cunha and Rayan Ait-Nouri left for big fees, as others have before, and those punts on non-Premier League talent who have replaced them have fallen well short.
The club are still making losses, albeit smaller, £14.3m in their most recent results published this year for the 2023-24 season. They are still stuck in the loop of a limited turnover – now £178m – driven mainly by Premier League broadcast and commercial disbursements. They still rely on player trading to comply with PSR while accepting that most of the funds raised have to go back into replacing those who have left.
Selling one’s best players and replacing them successfully on a season-by-season basis has been a difficult trick to pull off indefinitely for many clubs. Especially when it is so hard for those of Wolves’ size to increase commercial and match-day revenues.
